Archive for August, 2012

Last time I wrote on this subject I did not include links to my previous posts. Apparently, that struck a nerve. So, the posts are here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Previously, I linked to a story about Bell, CA. I did not mention much about the article at the time, but for this post I want to revisit Bell, CA, as I have a new update on the situation. First the story:

“Eight current and former Bell officials were arrested, including former City Manager Robert Rizzo, 56, whose nearly $800,000 salary ignited a furor over public pay and pensions across California.”

OK. Got it. Currently, they have been charged and are awaiting trial. What could be new you ask?? Well, now Eric Eggena, a former city prosecutor and director of general services, who was NOT among the eight facing charges, is suing the city for VACATION DAYS AND SICK DAYS compensation after he was FIRED!!! How much could that be you ask??

“One of the highest paid officials in Bell, fired at the peak of the corruption investigation that included a search of his house, has sued the city for $837,000, including compensation for 329 unused sick and vacation days.”

329 unused sick and vacation days!!! If a full year is 200 working days, this is less than 2 years!!! What was his salary you ask??

“When Eggena went to work for Bell in 2002 he earned $90,000 a year, but his salary nearly tripled over the next eight years, his total compensation swelling to $421,000 annually, putting him in the top tier of city officials nationwide.”

“At 2.5 square miles (6.5 km2), Bell is number thirteen in the list of the 25 smallest cities in the United States that have a population of at least 25,000″

2.5 square miles!! If it was a perfect square it would be approximately 1.58 miles per side. If someone wanted to run a marathon, they would have to run around Bell, CA MORE than 4 times!!! It is on the list of SMALLEST CITIES IN THE UNITED STATES!!!

The President of the United States EARNS $450,000 per year. This joker was making $421,000!!! This guy is NOT one of the ones facing charges about their stealing salaries. Tell this Eggena guy that he will get “his” money when California quits running a deficit and pays down it’s debt by half!!

Does ANYONE wonder why cities, counties or states are going BANKRUPT??

Let’s continue my many posts on the OVERPAYMENT of some people. For this trip, let’s go to Illinois. You know, Illinois, one of three states that is having tremendous budget problems. I’ll let you decide if some people are overpaid. Here is an article from Tax Payers United of America. I know, I know….that group is biased….or is extreme…or they are communists…..or whatever you want to call them. BUT, you can check the FACTS, with the Illinois State Government. So, the facts are INDISPUTABLE.

Here is a quote from the article:

“In the State Employees’ Retirement System (SERS), 84 of the top 100 are retired State Troopers, including 28 troopers who retired at age 50 and are getting over $100,000 a year.”

I understand that State Troopers work hard and they have a difficult and dangerous job, but seriously??? 28 Troopers retired at 50 a AND they get to receive $100,000/year for the rest of their lives??? To be RETIRED!!! I’ll bet that amount is indexed for inflation, also!!!

or how about this quote:

“The largest pension of all retired Illinois government-employees again is Tapas Das Gupta, formerly of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Gupta’s annual pension (as of April 1, 2012) is an astronomical $426,885 — $35,573 a month. So far, Gupta’s pension payout to date is a whopping $3,001,481.”

$426,885/year!!!! That is almost as much as the President of the United States earns ($450,000). Tell me again, why are states going bankrupt??

When are “REPORTERS” going to learn about that, which they report on??

Today is the date for another propaganda piece report from the Bureau of Labor “Statistics”, and I just can’t stand it sometimes. Today we get the piece as distributed by REUTERS, a supposed intelligent reporting agency, through CNBC, a BUSINESS reporting company!!! It is hard for me to believe that these people are COMPLETE MORONS, but my only other option is that they are doing this on purpose which makes them a part of the government propaganda machine. There are NO other options. AND, this is where most people get their information. SO SAD.

What is the problem you ask? Here is the lead paragraph:

“The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits unexpectedly rose last week, while a separate reading on U.S. manufacturing activity showed a slight improvement in August.”

Unexpectedly?? Seriously?? Where do these people live?? What are they looking at?? Where do they get their information?? Do they not look around?? Have they tried to get a job recently?? I have!!

Let me just provide a short list to the impediments to hiring ANYONE, if you are a business or thinking of starting a business:

1. The tax cliff that, as of now, is coming in 4 short months. At this point NO ONE, including the President, the possible new President, the Congress nor the Senate KNOWS how this WILL BE resolved. NO ONE!! People have ideas. But which ones will be attempted, is a guess, at this point.

2. A presidential election, that will decide, maybe, how the tax cliff will be dealt with. I say maybe, because even after the election, it may NOT be dealt with until after the fact.

3. ALL of the forms, fees, permits, requirements, regulations that are required to do ANYTHING.

4. The issues in Europe. (They WILL affect the USA, whether you want to believe it or not)

5. The issues in the Middle East. (Ditto)

6. Inflation, just because the “government propaganda machine” says there is no inflation, does not make it so. The price of the things that Americans use every day (gas, food, housing, repairs, etc.) are going UP. In most cases, much faster than the “government” says! I fear that the Drought of 2012 is going to accelerate these increases.

7. No one is buying ANYTHING EXTRA. America is in a just hang on mindset right now.

I could go on. But, you should get the picture. I understand that there are always unknowns when starting a business, or hiring someone new, but IMHO, todays unknowns ONLY have NEGATIVES associated with them. In other words, when the problem is solved, things are still going to be BAD or things are going to be WORSE. Until people are confident that things could be getting better, they will not BUY ANYTHING EXTRA.

Then I get to a point in the article that gives me hope that they might tell the truth, IF they would only INVESTIGATE the FACTS:

“A total of 5.59 million Americans were receiving unemployment benefits under all programs in the week ended Aug. 4, down 109,812 from the prior week.”

WHY is it “DOWN 109,812 from the prior week”?? Is it because they were hired?? Unfortunately the answer to that question is NO!!! In the last year the government “statisticians” have removed 1.3 MILLION people from the total!! With 109,812 in the last week alone. These people have reached the end of their unemployment benefits, so they are no longer counted. This has ARTIFICIALLY PUSHED THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE LOWER!! The actual unemployment rate is above 10%. The number of people being removed from the count is ACCELERATING.

Now I want to highlight what I said last December:

“Now for some cynicism. I keep hearing the Democrats argue that they “want” an extension of the “extended unemployment benefits” and saying that the Republicans are fighting to let them expire unless we can “tax the rich more”. Here is my view of the situation. The Republicans are in a no-win situation, because the Democrats are going to let them expire, no matter what the Republicans offer. Here is why. IF the benefits expire, then everyone that is unemployed for more 9 months (I believe this is what the law will revert to, if I am incorrect please leave a comment), instead of the current temporary 99 weeks (which is just short of 2 years) will NO LONGER BE COUNTED IN THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE. IF this happens, the Unemployment Rate will have a sudden drop from the current 9+% rate. This will make the numbers “look” like they improved, so President Obama can claim to be improving the economy. He will get on TV everyday and say that he brought the unemployment rate down from 9+% (it was over 9% thanks to President Bush and the Republicans) to x%, and that is why he ”deserves” to remain President. It would have come down sooner except the Republicans in Congress stopped him from helping out sooner.”

The question is: Will the “unemployment rate” dip below 8%?? If it does, this is ALL you will see on any television.

“…the Obama claim that Romney committed some sort of fraud (team Obama says he’s a “felon”) for his work at Bain Capital…”

or

“What Stephanie [Cutter] said, rightfully so, is that either Mitt Romney was lying on SEC forms and misrepresenting to his investors — which could be a felony — that he was the sole owner, president, CEO of Bain Capital from 1999 until almost the end of 2001, or he wasn’t and represented that he was.” – Debbie Wasserman Shultz (Stephanie Cutter is Obama’s Deputy Campaign Manager)

or

“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on Friday took the opportunity during an address from the Senate floor to repeat his claim that Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney did not pay his taxes for 10 years.” (which would be a felony…. at least if you are not one of Obama’s Czars!!)

or

“Pelosi says she believes Reid’s claim…”

So…let me get this straight. These are supposed to be OUR leaders, and they are making ACCUSATIONS (some say unfounded) about the Republican Nominee for President. These are NOT supposed to be CRACKPOT, fringe, WACKOS!!!!

And yet, there will be NO formal charges of Jon Corzine????? Are you kidding me??

“It turns out he may not be ultimately responsible. The New York Times reports that prosecutors are dropping their criminal investigation against Corzine and top executives there for their role in the MF Global catastrophe. “After 10 months of stitching together evidence on the firm’s demise, criminal investigators are concluding that chaos and porous risk controls at the firm, rather than fraud, allowed the money to disappear,” the newspaper reports.”

Are you kidding me???

With that I will leave you two final quote from the Corzine article:

““I simply do not know where the money is or why the accounts haven’t been reconciled,” he said and added that as CEO of MF Global Holdings, he is ultimately responsible.”

and

“How could prosecutors drop a case where over one billion dollars in client money has gone missing , and where a CEO is throwing his hands up and saying he has no clue?”

If anyone has a question as to why California cities are going bankrupt, they just need to look at how much people who work for the local city, the county or the state are paid. For instance, from an article in the Daily Caller:

“…for just 10 Hermosa Beach state employees, taxpayers are paying more than $1 million in bloated salaries, health, and retirement benefits…”

WOW!!! 10 employees…..more than $1 MILLION….wait…..thats more than $100,000 per year!!! Well, I’m sure that their jobs are very demanding and require a lot of specialized knowledge. Right?? Let’s look at the job posting for these 10 “employees”:

“You have to be able to drive a standard transmission; you have to able to handle large animals; you have to read and interpret statutes and regulations; and you have a high school diploma or equivalent.”

A high school diploma??? That’s it??? I can do that. Well, I’m sure that Hermosa Beach is HUGE and they are responsible for a lot. Right??

“…for the 1.3-square-mile beach city southwest of downtown Los Angeles…”

1.3 square MILES!!! That is 27,878,400 square feet. If they divide that up equally….that is almost 3,000,000 square feet each person is responsible for. I can do that. Don’t they have houses that big in Los Angeles??

Well what is the job, maybe they are guarding the gold in the local mint?

“There are 10 parking enforcement employees for the 1.3-square-mile beach city southwest of downtown Los Angeles, and they pull down some disproportionate compensation, considering their job functions. In fact, the two highest-earning employees for fiscal year 2011-12 are estimated to have made more than $92,000 and $93,000, respectively, according to city documents provided by Patrick “Kit” Bobko, one of five council members.”

Parking Enforcement Employees??? Meter Maids!! Hermosa Beach is paying almost $100,000 per year in salary to people who write PARKING TICKETS!!!

Are you kidding me??? NO ONE should be surprised that cities are declaring bankruptcy!!!

I have written about Government General Motors and the Bailout in the past (all the way back in June of 2011), detailing what the Liar Commander-In-Chief’s Administration has said. The relevant quote is as follows:

“The Obama administration said Wednesday that the government will lose about $14 billion in taxpayer funds from the bailout of the U.S. auto industry.”

At the time I criticized the analysis. Needless to say…….I was CORRECT!!!

“And on Friday, the Treasury Department announced that expected losses to taxpayers from the bailout would increase more than $3.3 billion to $25.1 billion — up from $21.7 billion last quarter.”

In ONE year the estimate has almost DOUBLED from their initial propaganda estimate!!! Oh wait….that sounds like the Federal Government. Have IDIOTS or PROPAGANDISTS make an estimate that is GROSSLY inaccurate in order to start a project and then GOUGE the taxpayers for any “overruns”. But don’t worry, ObamaCare will ONLY COST $1 TRILLION!!! Call me skeptical.

AND this number STILL does NOT include the $45.4 BILLION in taxes that have been forgiven in the future!!! That is….IF they EVER make money again. And that is a BIG IF!!!

Everyone should know how I feel about the Bureau of Labor “Statistics”, the BLS. If not, please check ANY of my posts concerning the weekly Unemployment Report. I feel that I have given sufficient evidence that they are a propaganda department.

NOW, it appears that the Census Bureau has also turned to the dark side. Here is an article from Zerohedge:

“Mystery Of July Retail Sales “Beat” Solved: It Is All In The “Seasonal Adjustment“”

What could the mystery be you ask??

“with the July seasonal adjustment factor routinely subtracting a substantial amount from the NSA number, averaging at -$5.2 billion, in 2012, for the first time this decade, the seasonal adjustment not only did not subtract, but in fact added “value” to the NSA number, resulting in a seasonally adjusted number that was $1.9 billion higher than the NSA number at $403.9 billion.”

That’s right!!! For the first time this DECADE!! The people who make this report, added instead of subtracting as an adjustment in July!!! Just to make the number appear better than it actually is!!! You know, instead of TELLING THE TRUTH!!

These people are DISHONEST, and are trying to help a sitting administration with a LIE!!!